Quetica is part of the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) team selected to conduct the INtermodal Freight Optimization for a Resilient Mobility Energy System (INFORMES) under a competitive federal research grant program. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awarded $2.2 million to develop the INFORMES, an intermodal freight modeling framework that will provide insights to decision-makers redesigning the national freight system to meet net-zero targets by 2050. Quetica is contributing our knowledge of private sector supply chains and optimization modeling expertise. We are a major contributor to the development of the network optimization modeling tool and framework to create routable intermodal networks for highways, railroads and waterways. The project kicked off in January 2024; a link to this presentation can be found at: INTERMODAL Kickoff Meeting
INFORMES aims to develop a national-level intermodal freight modeling framework to support decision-making in the execution and rollout strategy of decarbonization technologies and guide efficient operations of the intermodal freight system. The models developed in this project will explore two approaches, both of which help reduce energy consumption, Green House Gas emissions, and total costs of moving containers. One approach is when and where low-carbon energy sources and systems, intermodal freight terminals, and emerging vehicle operations would be deployed in the near future. Another approach is which combination of truck, rail, and domestic maritime vessel would be used to move intermodal containers from origins to destinations and where transloading between two transportation modes would be occur over the transportation network. Two approaches will be tightly integrated into a Python-based software tool that is easily accessible by the public users to identify equitable pathways that meet decarbonization goals at minimum cost. The tool will be used to provide unprecedented insights to federal and regional planners, port or transshipment facility operators or planners, energy system suppliers, research and development organizations, or academia, which align the national freight system with net-zero targets by 2050. Both the tool and example simulation results will be documented in journal papers and presented to the research community.
The INFORMES project is being funded by the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E advances high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. The INFORMS project was one of six projects awarded grants this past fall for modeling optimal deployment strategies for low-carbon intermodal freight networks. A press release on the ARPA-E project can be found at: Press Release | arpa-e.energy.gov
